Almost half of Americans have some level of anxiety about going to the dentist. Find out how sedation medicine can help you have a pleasant experience.
Sleep apnea is a serious condition that affects more than 20 million adults in the United States. This chronic condition refers to sleep interrupted by periods of non-breathing, either due to an obstruction in your airway or to central signals sent by your brain. These instances of slow or non-breathing can happen anywhere from a few times to hundreds of times during a night.
In the short term, sleep apnea results in poor-quality sleep, lack of attentiveness, impaired memory, fatigue, and exhaustion. However, the long-term effects of sleep apnea last far beyond just your night of sleep and the morning after.
Consistent, untreated sleep apnea may contribute to heart disease, mental health disorders, diabetes, obesity, or stroke as a result of the compounded effects of low oxygen levels stacked on top of a deficit of adequate rest.
Many people have heard of the CPAP machine — the initials stand for continuous positive airway pressure — as a common treatment for sleep apnea. The CPAP ventilator comes with a face or nasal mask and works like an artificial breathing machine, helping you have a night of constant and consistent full breaths by regulating pressure.
However, CPAP machines can be unwieldy and uncomfortable, and they can be difficult to manage with a travel schedule. If you are looking for a smaller-sized and more comfortable solution, consider custom dental guards for sleep apnea treatment.
Custom dental guards, also known as snore guards, have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for sleep apnea. The concept behind a snore guard is very simple: The device is custom-molded to conform with your mouth and teeth, and is shaped to produce a slight shift of your jaw.
This shift allows for your tongue to naturally place itself between the upper and lower part of the dental guard, thus maintaining an opening for you to breathe. It is a safe, simple, and non-mechanical solution that has positive results for sleep apnea patients.
Professional organizations such as the American Sleep Association, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine have endorsed custom dental guards for sleep apnea.
At Smile Design Manhattan, we work with you to design a custom mouth guard with an excellent fit in addition to sharing expertise on sleep apnea and its management. A good night’s sleep is within your grasp with the assistance of a custom dental guard. Call to schedule an appointment with Smile Design Manhattan or book online today.
You Might Also Enjoy...
Almost half of Americans have some level of anxiety about going to the dentist. Find out how sedation medicine can help you have a pleasant experience.
Is there life after dental implant surgery? The answer, of course, is yes. Here’s more info on what dental implants are and how you can adjust to life with implants.
If you think the only reasons to care about flaws in your smile are cosmetic, you might need to think again. Read on to learn more about the non-cosmetic reasons for fixing your smile.
Dental implants are now the best way to successfully replace missing teeth because the implant replaces the tooth above and below the gumline. As with any contemporary dental procedure, pain is well controlled with anesthetics.
When you look in the mirror, do you see more of your gums than your teeth? If you’re embarrassed by a gummy smile, it’s time to explore how a gum lift can reshape your gums and give you the beautiful smile you desire.
You can undergo dental surgery to remove problem wisdom teeth at age, but there’s a recommended window between the ages of 18 and 24 when dentists would prefer for extraction. This age provides a balance of simple procedure and speedy recovery. Here’s why.